


Binder Blues

by fairdeath



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Character Study, Dysphoria, Galra!Keith, Gender Dysphoria, M/M, Mild Smut, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Trans Pidge | Katie Holt, ftm lance, mild panic attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 21:38:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9626678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairdeath/pseuds/fairdeath
Summary: Lance is tired. Just... tired. Five extra steps to every mission that the others don't follow – bind, cry because it fucking hurts over the blue-black bruises of the last fight, get hit a few times more than necessary, spend 20 minutes catching your breath, ignore the bruises the binder pushes at until the next fight.





	

**Author's Note:**

> all of your favourites are trans, in case u missed the memo

Lance hates flying around the universe to fight bad guys, save the galaxy.  

Or, well – that’s not entirely true. Lance loves flying around the universe, and fighting the bad guys, and saving the galaxy – and who isn’t weak at the knees for someone that just saved their life/city/planet? There’s nothing like the recoil of a gun, awesome laser firing towards the jerk that just tried to hurt your lion because that huge, ugly hunk of metal? Yeah, that's a part of your soul. There’s nothing like the feeling of noses, or whatever the alien equivalent is, crunching under the hell of your foot when you kick them to the ground. There’s nothing like knowing you’ve saved one person’s life. Sometimes more, he hopes. 

Lance just hates being constricted in his breathing, unable to fully inhale; hates the way that if Keith is too slow to back him up, his vision goes dark on the edges; hates the feeling that he could be doing more if it weren’t for his stupid body.  

Wearing a binder while fighting Galra is not on his top ten list of ‘favourite past times’.  

After every fight, when everyone is holding their sides and retreating to lick their wounds, Lance spends upwards of fifteen minutes trying to bring enough oxygen into his blood to be able to make his way to his room or the infirmary, whichever is applicable, without passing out. His arms stretch along the smooth embrace of his pilot’s seat in Blue, her engines purring as she goes through her self-repair routine. It’s… quiet. It lets Lance think about the fight, what went right, what went wrong, what they need to work on for next time.  

But sometimes it’s too quiet; it lets him think about a dodge he should have made, but couldn’t from his binder, of the hits he should have landed, but couldn’t out of breathlessness.  

 

His fingers itch to itch. He needs to scrape the cooled sweat from his arms, from the soft hair there, from the pores on his face, in his forehead, from the follicles on his scalp, the skin cells across his chest. His palms slip along the smooth glass of his helmet, eventually manage to tug it free of his head and throw it across the cockpit. He whines, choking on the air around him, fingers clawing at the zippers and industrial velcro strips and Lance knows that its designed to keep him safe, but wishes these uniforms weren't so goddamn complicated. There's a chest plate falling slack in front of him, his back open to feel the cool air against the damp skin at his waist, but not much more above that. He groans, weak and reminiscent of a child throwing a tantrum, but he works his arms out of the sleeves, each stitch in the fabric tugging at skin that is both his own and unknown, like he's feeling too much and not enough.  

The goddamn uniform is off, leaving Lance in his boxers (loose, always, boring patterns, definitely) and yet it is not enough.  The uniform being taken off offers no reprieve from the ache for oxygen, for comfort. His fingers scramble to get beneath the hem of his binder, soaked through with sweat, and probably blood if those Galra had any real fight in them. He is tired. Just... tired. Five extra steps to every mission that the others don't follow – bind, cry because it fucking hurts over the blue-black bruises of the last fight, get hit a few times more than necessary, spend 20 minutes catching your breath, ignore the bruises the binder pushes at until the next fight. Lance's mine is running both at a snail's pace, and a million lightyears a tick, and he doesn't know which is worse.  

He ends up lying there, chest heaving for air, body near horizontal in the pilot's seat. He looks to the ceiling, ignores the slight but definite rise of his breasts as his chest rises and falls like the crashing waves of the shore – too loud, too strong, could kill him if it tried hard enough.  

 

Lance wishes he was like Keith, or like Pidge. They're both so content in themselves. Pidge, born with soft features and a figure to match, who wears loose clothing not to hide their figure, but for _comfort,_ uncaring of how it may show. Pidge, who will correct anyone who uses feminine pronouns for them without the bat of an eyelash. Pidge, who sits in their hanger, topless, breast tissue clinging under skin despite how muscular their body becomes as they fight, who doesn't seem to notice or care. Keith, who was born with the blood of the race they kill near daily running through his veins, holds his head high as he trains, as he fights, even when struck and bloody. Keith, who is not ashamed to be _different_ , who is not ashamed when they fool around, who knows his eyes begin to glow gold, hair begins to shine purple, but doesn't care in the slightest, a mutual end goal between them, a sparkle in their eyes, no matter how gold, who is not ashamed when the Galra call him a traitor as he makes his way through them.  

Lance is not like either of them.  

Lance is a boy, this is true. However, he is a boy scared to look in the mirror to long most days, too scared to fight without his binder, too scared for the chance of some alien freak to make a low-blow on purpose or accidentally, misgender him and leave him defenseless. Lance is not a strong man in his masculinity, hence why he hides behind walls of pickup lines and sly smirks, bad puns and smooth talking. What does he have if not that? What defines him as a man bar his flaws? 

He is a man, yet too frightened to reveal his secret to his team – no matter how far on the back end of Pidge's reveal he might be, it'll still feel like he's grasping at straws of attention. Keith, though, has known for a long time. It was hard to not notice some anatomy differed from Keith's own after Lance jacked him off the third time without accepting reciprocation.  

 

Keith disagrees with all of this, though. He whispers to Lance about how handsome he is, avoids spending too long on teasing him by palms spread flat on his chest, but stares all the same, says how _fucking gorgeous_ he is, tells him how strong he is (with kisses to biceps, toned thighs, clenched abs) both inside and out, tells Lance how loved he is. It isn't just about how loved he is by Keith, but by Shiro, who would kick anyone's ass for making any member of the team even slightly frown, by Hunk, who would hold Lance in a tight embrace for hours if he was granted permission, would bring Lance pick-me-up cookies he managed to put together that actually tasted _good,_ Pidge, who would play video games with him, watch the world burn while they did it, sitting topless in Pidge's room if he wanted.  

 

Half an hour later, he makes his way to the infirmary to check on his team mates. 

 

He isn't a strong man. He is weak in a body that doesn't often feel like home. He doesn't trust himself, and certainly is skeptical of others. But he's trying. He'll get there one day. Not today, probably not tomorrow, but one day, he will be confident and happy in his skin, surrounded by a family he has built around him.  

**Author's Note:**

> let's pretend this wasn't me projecting


End file.
